One of the vehicles was broken nearly in half, and bus driver Joseph Barthelus was pronounced dead at the scene. His Route 59 bus was empty, but he crashed into a Route 13 bus with 17 passengers on board. One of those passengers, 49-year-old Jesy Garcia, of Newark, was rushed to the hospital but died several hours later. The grandmother of three was on her way to her job at the time.

"She was a hard worker, got up every day, six days a week to work," family friend Jasmina Bosnjakovic said. "She got up at 5 a.m. every single day to go make an honest living and to come home and live the simple life."

Eighteen people were injured, six critically.

PHOTO: Two buses collide in Newark, New Jersey

Many passengers were entangled in twisted metal seats covered in shards of glass as the force of the crash tipped the occupied bus at a 30-degree angle as it came to rest on a median. Some were trapped and needed to be rescued, and firefighters could be seen pulling passengers through a side window and loading them onto waiting stretchers and into ambulances.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said the cause of the accident remains under investigation.